Bigger issue here
The forthcoming demise of our local taxi service should also focus our attention on an even bigger issue – the lack of public transport, especially to and from the South East Regional Hospital but also generally.
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The fact that our FIFO (fly in fly out) local member is also the Minister for Transport – or the Minister for no Transport depending on where you live – is almost worthy of a Monty Python sketch!
Perhaps the NSW (Newcastle Sydney Wollongong) Liberal government might divert some funds from its stadium building budget - or even revenue from advertising on the Opera House sails – to underwrite such a service?
More chance of hitching a ride on those flying pigs methinks!
Kevin Walsh, Tura Beach
Excise Boyd name
The traditional custodians of Ben Boyd’s National Park would like the name of this man excised from the name of the Park.
Boyd and the Imlay brothers took full advantage of the colonial government policies of the time and greedily locked up most of the land in this area early on in settlement.
As has been the case of colonial expansion all over the world, it was convenient to disregard the indigenous populations and thus their loss has been, and I imagine for every new generation born to this day, beyond grief.
Of course the impact of dispossession on their economic life, culture and language continued long after the big squatters were gone but their names writ large (Mount Imlay is another example) must surely dismay to this day.
I only recently became aware of the Indigenous poet Jack Davis and I close with his poem on the subject of the impact of settlement of this country.
Remembering
They can forgive you
for the land you have stolen
the rivers you have polluted
the forests you have ruined
the water you have poisoned
flour and strychnine
the island prisons
the chain and the gun
But what they cannot forget is
You have slowed their heartbeat
And cast brute shadows
Over the face of their sun.
Monica McMahon Kiah
Turning our back?
There’s so little grass in the eastern parts of Kosciuszko National Park like Byadbo and Merambego many more horses are going to unfortunately follow those now recognised as having died from starvation.
If a private landholder had treated brumbies this way, the RSPCA would surely prosecute. Any farmer with a heart would put starving stock out of their misery. The native flora and fauna are suffering grievously from the competition for grass.
I know we have people with a grudge who because of the politics will never acknowledge the agony of the starving horses.
It’s the nature of our environment and its cyclical weather patterns.
The extreme drought is going to take a great many more horses in a lingering slow motion death that we could call nature’s cull of the un-adapted.
For the sake of all the other plants and animals that are feeling the results of the over-population of horses, we need to assist the species that cannot regulate its own numbers.
In dread I think of the other carcasses that will keep appearing. But must we turn our backs on the back country?
Given we haven’t had drought-breaking rains in Kosciuszko National Park, what happens if we start getting fires when the weather warms up? Will the fate of surviving brumbies be cooked?
Surely it’s time park staff were allowed to do their duty and implement the 2008 Wild Horse Management Plan.